Esopus Announces Fall 2016 Limited-Edition Artwork

Golden Years features never-before-seen images of musical icons David Bowie, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, AC/DC, Aerosmith, The Pretenders, Blondie, Peter Gabriel, and many others. These photographs were taken by Ed Rosenbaum at rock ‘n’ roll concerts in the New York area in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and they are being published for the first time in this 56-page, 10"-x-15” clothbound book, which will be sent to Premium subscribers in mid-October.

In 1977, Rosenbaum, a teenager born and raised in Brooklyn, decided to bring along a Pentax manual camera to rock ‘n’ roll concerts featuring his favorite bands at NYC venues like The Palladium, CBGB, and Madison Square Garden. “It was a way to remember the shows you went to,” he recalls. The fact that Rosenbaum took all of these stunning photos from the floor—in many cases, from seats far away from the stage—is a testament to both his vision and his enthusiasm for the acts he documented. Many of the photographs included in the book will become instant classics.

In the early ’80s, Rosenbaum left music and photography behind, eventually finding a job as a doorman in an apartment building in downtown New York, where he has worked for the past several decades. Not long ago, he came across the negatives of these photographs and happened to show them to one of the building’s residents, a student at New York University who told Esopus editor Tod Lippy about them when he lectured recently to her class.

While Esopus is perhaps best-known for featuring artist’s projects by well-known figures such as Jenny Holzer, John Baldessari, and Kerry James Marshall, the publication has always championed the work of individuals whose work is unknown—or who may not even consider themselves to be artists in the first place. In 2005, Esopus debuted the extraordinary photographs of Mark Hogancamp, who became the subject of Marwencol, an award-winning 2010 documentary by Esopus subscriber Jeff Malmberg, and which led to Hogancamp’s work being featured in solo and group shows around the country and the world. Over the past 13 years, Esopus has introduced amazing work by 13-year-old Alex Brown, the autistic artist Alex Masket, warehouse manager Bob Irey, and Holocaust survivor Samuel Varkovitsky, among many others.

In conjunction with the book, Esopus has curated an exhibition of Rosenbaum’s photographs that will open on October 9th at the acclaimed Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The show, featuring a selection of the photographs published in the book, will run through November.

Golden Years is the Esopus Foundation's fourth limited-edition artwork for Esopus subscribers, following those by Robert Gober (2012), Mark Hogancamp (2014), and Beth Campbell and Charles Bissell (2015). The book is not for sale and will be available only to Premium subscribers to Esopus; its edition size will be determined by the number of current Premium subscribers when it goes on press in mid-September. Esopus Premium subscriptions start at $75.

To subscribe, visit Esopus's online store. To check the status of your current subscription, click here and log in to your account. And if you already hold a current Basic subscription to Esopus but would like to upgrade it in order to receive this edition, you can do so here.

For more information, contact Esopus editor Tod Lippy at 855-2-ESOPUS or at info@esopus.org.